Deep Dives

Dec 08, 2023

Deep Dive: A Primer on Cryptocurrencies

Dec 5

In July, President Trump spoke at a Bitcoin conference and told the audience he would make the United States "the crypto capital of the planet". The crowd went wild.

Since then, President Trump won the presidential election with an unprecedented sweep of all seven battleground states, Gary Gensler announced his departure from the SEC next month, and earlier today, Bitcoin passed the $100,000 milestone.

The cryptocurrency market now commands $3.5 trillion in value, with over 15 million daily active users across all decentralized networks...

Read full story

Deep Dive: Understanding Federal Agencies

Chamath Palihapitiya

Oct 30

Deep Dive: Understanding Federal Agencies

When Elon, RFK Jr., and Vivek talk about an overgrown and ineffective federal bureaucracy, they are referring to the 400+ federal agencies that form the operational backbone of the U.S. federal government...

Read full story

Deep Dive: Is India the Next Economic Giant?

Chamath Palihapitiya

Oct 1

Deep Dive: Is India the Next Economic Giant?

Around 20 years ago, China experienced a period of unprecedented economic growth and technological advancement. I watched many of my friends invest early in China and achieve remarkable success...

Read full story

Deep Dive: A Primer on Drug Development

Chamath Palihapitiya

Aug 9

Countless biological processes are occurring within the human body at any given moment. These biological processes are often so complicated or happening so quickly that scientists today do not understand how they work.

The subset of biological processes that we can break down into a sequence of molecular interactions ultimately become targets for new drugs...

Read full story

Deep Dive: Defense 2.0 - Protecting America

Chamath Palihapitiya

Jul 2

Deep Dive: Defense 2.0 - Protecting America

The world is currently experiencing a significant geopolitical shift, marked by active conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, rising tensions in the Red Sea, and mounting concerns over a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

Amid this geopolitical backdrop, we are presented with seemingly conflicting data points.

The U.S. has been the world's preeminent military power for the past 70 years, yet the conflict in Ukraine has exposed shortages in critical U.S. weaponry such as Javelin missiles, and new enlistments in the U.S. military are near an all-time low over a 40-year period...

Read full story

Deep Dive: Creator Economy - The Next Phase of Media

Chamath Palihapitiya

Jun 4

Deep Dive: Creator Economy - The Next Phase of Media

Every day, we make decisions about which products and services to consume.

With countless options and categories to choose from, how do we end up selecting certain products over others?

More than $60T is spent annually by consumers on various products and services so this month’s deep dive focuses on the changing nature of how consumers are influenced.

In a world where we often lack the time or expertise to evaluate every option, the media initially drove consumption decisions by selling advertising about which products and services were best, most valuable, or most suitable...

Read full story

Deep Dive: Moore's Law and Next Steps for Silicon

Chamath Palihapitiya

Apr 30

Deep Dive: Moore's Law and Next Steps for Silicon

Since the invention of the first silicon transistor in 1954, we have seen an exponential increase in the power of computers, in-line with a famous prediction called ‘Moore’s Law’.

Moore’s Law predicted that the number of transistors on a chip would double approximately every two years, driving the development of increasingly powerful computers.

As we developed new methods to print smaller and smaller transistors, this relationship held true, and we can now print integrated circuits with billions of transistors that power leading-edge machines like the new Macbook Pro...

Read full story

Deep Dive: The Future of Space

Chamath Palihapitiya

Mar 28

Every few weeks, we see a new video of Elon Musk launching a Falcon 9 or Starship rocket into space and landing it back on Earth ready to be used again.

But have you ever stopped and wondered how a rocket even works, or what is driving us to launch so many of them into orbit?

Read full story

Deep Dive: The Business Model of Healthcare

Chamath Palihapitiya

Feb 28

Deep Dive: The Business Model of Healthcare

My father died from a cardiac arrest 30 years after being diagnosed with diabetes. He spent 10 years on metformin, 10 years on insulin and the final 10 years on dialysis.

Through his journey I saw the complexity of modern healthcare.

Fortunately, we lived this experience in Canada, where the government paid for our healthcare. When I came to the U.S., I quickly realized that had his ordeal played out here, we would have gone bankrupt...

Read full story

Deep Dive: Artificial Intelligence

Chamath Palihapitiya

Jan 23

Every day we are bombarded with so much news about AI that it's increasingly difficult to know what is signal and what is noise.

And the tidal wave of this information came so quickly that for many, including myself, there was never a moment to take a step back and learn the basics in a way that put everything into context...

Read full story

Deep Dive: The Global Energy Transition

Chamath Palihapitiya

December 4, 2023

In 2020, I made a personal commitment to learn and invest in the energy transition and clean tech / climate change initiatives.

I connected with a friend of mine who was a Senior Partner at McKinsey who told me a little secret: when folks like Bill Gates want to learn important new topics, McKinsey helps to educate them by bringing in their Partners to do teach-ins...

Read full story